$5/$10 NL at the Borgata

Monday $1/$2 NL finally broke around 0400/0500, something like that. Bus doesn’t leave until 0910. And it’s… the bus. Ricky hates busses. He suggested we rent a car. True, between the four of us going, we each had wheels, but none of us could really fit four degenerates in one sitting between a coupla pick-up trucks, a VW Bug, and a Jeep Wrangler (with the back seat out).

So we got online, priced it, decided we’ve dropped more $$ for less value, and we reserved a car from Thrifty at the BWI rent-a-car area.

Not just any car. Like I said a little while back, I’m a big fan of pampering yourself when given the opportunity. We got a Chrysler 300, somehow I got to do most of the driving. I love this car. I almost want to get one of them there real jobs and live the straight life so I can buy one of my own. I later decided I’d just play better for the next couple of months and maybe go ahead and buy one next fall. I don’t know how to describe how/why I loved this car so much, I just did.

We stopped in Runnemede, NJ for some cigarettes and a muffin or two, then Andy finished out the rest of the drive.

I got a nice twenty to forty minute nap before we arrived at The Taj Mahal. Andy wanted to play the $300+$40 Stud H/L event for the Trump Classic. We pulled up to Valet, went inside to check out the action.

Or lack thereof, in this case.

I’ve seen dead poker rooms, but when it’s as big as the Taj, AND dead, just looks upsetting.

Fuck this, sorry Andy – we’d love to support you and all – but we’re heading over to the Borgata. Ricky and I each did give Andy $113 for 33% of his action in return. As much support as we could muster.

Got to the B and I dropped off Katie and Ricky at the Poker Escalator before I went off to park the car. When I got inside I didn’t see the other two, so I wandered up to the back brush to try to get a $5/$10 NL seat. Game full, I was first up. I went back to the main room and the Floor said he’d lock me up for $1/$2 NL, grab my chips at the window. I grab chips. I come back, he’s busy, they call a “Brand New $2/$5 NL” before I can get my $1/$2 NL seat. Three people sit at the new table, one of them is Ricky.

They call me for $5/$10 NL. I pick up, go to the back, Floor tells me he’s got to bag up a guy’s chips then I can have the seat. I go to the window and get another stack of green checkers so I can sit with a dime to start. I come back to the table, wouldn’t ya know, the guy that was about to get picked up has returned. “Sorry, Sir.”

Fuck.

I go back to the $2/$5 NL game, it’s filling up – but Ricky’s not there. He got a seat in the game that was already going. Dirty bitch! I wanted that seat. I even put my name on the list before he did.

I wasn’t outright nervous due to the chips in play or bet sizes, I’d been in a game like this before out in Vegas and even just outside of Baltimore. But looking around the table, these players were better than those I’d played with before, for the most part.

Just had to be careful, that’s all.

After a little bit of musical chairs I make it out of the seven seat and into the one. Seven was cramped with a fat guy in the five taking up too much room. Roughly two or three hours have gone by and I’m up almost $300 without having shown down a hand. I flopped quads once, picked up a $75 bet on the river + $50 in limpers. Had to show that one down.

Ricky comes over and asks if I want to grab a smoke. I’ve cut back on my smoking tremendously since AC changed their smoking laws. I used to smoke a pack a day and now I’m surprised if I go through a pack a week. I really had no desire for a cigarette, but figured I’d go see what Ricky had to say all the same. I was UTG, decided I’d play through my blinds instead of miss them and come back.

Wise decision.

Five limpers, small blind tops off, I check. Flop is T74, two hearts. Checks to the button who bets $55 into $70. Small blind calls. I c/r. If I just call, there’s $165+$70 in the middle. I think I laised about $115 more. Button folds. Sb Calls.

Turn is a non-flush T74 4. He checks. I fire. I win.

I love this fucking game.

I had a real hand, but just the pre-flop limps and c/r $ I picked up on the flop was enough to make me happy.

I fold my sb/button, then go out to smoke with Ricky and Katie. I finally make it back to the table and I’ve almost missed one hand. The dealer’s are fantastic at the B, but the play in the higher NL games can take time.

Not sure if it was a round or several before I almost have a cardiac event.

Two limpers to my hi-jack (one before cut-off). I open for $35. Button calls, bb calls, limpers call. 5 x $35 + $5 (sb) in the pot. $180. Flop is QT9, all clubs. Two checks to the ten seat, same guy that bet into my quads, and he says, “How many players, Dealer?” “Five,” she replies. He drops two black birds in the pot.

Why am I here? I didn’t drive all the way up here and buy into a $5/$10 NL game to play like a scared little girl, did I?

I put sixteen greens in the pot, stacked and cut neatly in $100 piles, four of them. Folds back to the original aggressor. He seems genuinely perplexed. He likes his hand, but he’s not smitten with it. If he calls, there’s $980 in the middle, and he’s got first bluff on the turn.

Why bother with seeing a turn? He shoves on my ass, covering.

Why am I here?

Before this hand, I was sitting on a nice $600 win having only shown down quads in under four hours. I’m not sure how, the odds are slim, but I really think I’m ahead.

I make a hell of a face, I cringe. I stack my shit up nice and neat and slide it into the middle, crack my voice and say, “Aight, I call.”

Turn, blank, spade deuce. River – FUCK! Pairs the board. If I was somehow ahead on the flop I most certainly must be fucked now.

He shoved, he’s got to show first. He turns up his hand. If you could see my face when I stuck my stack in there it was quite the opposite of how happy i was to his hand. He flopped a six-high flush with 6c4c. I said “That’s a six-high flush, right?”

I said some cocky bull shit like “I didn’t raise this bull shit to fold when I froppa frush!” Then quietly, but not so quiet that he couldn’t hear me, I said, “Thank you, Sir, for having the only hand in the deck I could beat.”

Not five hands later Ricky comes over and says, “You want to go check-in to the room soon or play through?”

I shocked him when I said, “I’ma get up when the dealer changes.”

And get up I did. I donked it up and gave back a few hundred before doing so. Went to the window with $3,035 from my $1K buy-in.